Day 366 – A Jubilee tea!

A couple months ago I decided to order 2, and only 2, side plates to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth. Took them a while to get here but they arrived in FINE style! Each plate was wrapped in layers of bubble wrap and in their own box with the above gold embossing.

This is what we found when we opened the boxes : ) There is a little informational card and the plate itself is wrapped with lion-and-crown gold imprinted tissue paper!

I almost stopped there…

But I didn’t : )

For our final post of the year we’re featuring these stunning plates. They are sitting on Royal Worchester Howard china from my sister’s collection. They are so stunning that nothing else was needed. My Gorham Chantilly sterling silver seemed to be the appropriate silverware for so fine an event. The water glasses have a gold rim and floral design around the top that mimics the tea cups, the wine glasses are crystal as is the candelabra in the middle of the table that my grandmother received as a wedding present in 1940. The small rectangular dish is called a “pin dish” that commemorates the coronation and believe it or not I use it as just that in my sewing room!

The tea cups and saucers as well as the tea pot, sugar and creamer are the set I found just before the Gatsby picnic last year at the Alameda Flea market. While the patterns don’t match the gold rims do. And let’s put this into some perspective – the two plates commemorating the Jubilee cost about $140 while the entire tea set (all 28 pieces) was around $30!

My justification for buying these was how often are we going to witness an event like a 60th anniversary of ANYTHING? I love the two postcards and the bowl my grandfather brought back from England in 1953 so this is the next generation of that sort of thing. I’ll re-wrap the plates in their fancy tissue and carefully tuck them into their embossed blue boxes and store them in a box under my bed. I’ll leave a note for my daughter telling her why I bought them and hope she and her future family will appreciate them.

I’ve printed out each of the last 365 posts and keep them in binders to show people like my grandmother who doesn’t use the internet. It will all be part of my legacy one day. “Remember when grandma/great grandma did that crazy tablesetting a day for a year thing? What ever possessed her to do something like that?!”

Because we started this journey a year ago with a table with candelight in the dark we end it that way too.

We picked up the tea party and went outside!

So we end our year here. Out by the pond at dusk surrounded by elegance. In the past year we’ve taken well over 20,000 pictures, edited several thousand and learned the basics of photoshop. I only wiped out a camera lens once and there were cats involved : )

We decided to postpone the Final Interactive Challenge when Sue ran into some serious health issues. We’re still going to do it, and if you’d like to make a tablesetting you are still more than welcome to participate! We are still going to have parties using our dish sets and blog about it, it just became tough to do the daily setting, work full times jobs AND take care of our lives, houses and gardens. I am infinitely pleased that we managed to get every single post up for the last year! There were moments when I thought we might have to just say “oh well” but those were worked through.

I also want to say “THANK YOU!!” to everyone who stopped by, left a comment, shared our pics on their blogs and invited their friends to stop by. When you do something like this you have no idea if you’re reaching people but I do know from looking at the map that we’ve been seen all over the world. The power of the comments is HUGE so thank you to everyone who dropped us a line : )

I’ll be taking a short break from dishes and tablecloths and setting up a sewing blog. For those of you who have followed me on Sew Weekly I’ll be blogging over there for the rest of the year so I won’t be gone! I’m also not going to stop going to flea markets or stop buying dishes and linens, I’ll just be pickier. The interesting thing I saw when looking at what others shared on their blogs is that almost anything with red in it is quite popular. Since I’m the red fan this will be an easy thing to continue. I’m also going to start selling some of the things I’ve acquired, don’t need any friends or family members thinking I could do a shot on “Hoarders”, so if there is something that you would love to own drop me a note.

So Thank You again, I’ve had a blast! I hope you did too.

See you soon : )

And that’s it…

We are done.

Enjoy and share:

5 comments to Day 366 – A Jubilee tea!

HiLoran — I miss your daily placesetting email showing up on my list. Now when I go into an antique store, Goodwill, Dollar Tree, and any other stores that have tableware I think of you. You have given me some good ideas and not using just the same old things!! Hope you have some other intereting things to share like this — be sureto have me on your list!!

I have so enjoyed your daily posts! They have inspired me to enjoy my Fiesta and to “set” a table. I look forward to reading about your next adventures, and seeing your wonderful sewing creations! Thank you for sharing this great blog.

Thank you so much for your hard work, and your generosity in sharing your time, your life, your collections, your friends and family, and even your chickens and cats with all of us “denizens of the web”. You have made the past year more beautiful for all of us, and more personally, you have been a consistent bright spot in my day.